10 Reasons Why It Is Important to Have Animals Around Your Kid
“Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.”
― Alfred A. Montapert
As parents, we always want to protect our children and see them happy. Their health and contentment become our number one priority. And there is no better way for our kids be content than to grow up in a happy, cheerful environment along with a few furry, ‘cuddle-able’, little beings also known as pets! Other than helping kids to grow up into caring, compassionate human beings; pets can teach both the child and parents really important life lessons. So here are a few reasons why it is important to have animals around your kid. (Believe me, it’s the best gift you’ll ever give your child!)
1) Responsibility
Pets can teach your children to be responsible and care for others very early in life. The bond a child develops with a pet can help bring out a sense of responsibility and maturity in them. Children who grow up with pets are proven to be more efficient in decision-making skills. Additionally, your child will not only learn to take care of their pets but also take care of themselves.
2) Health Benefits
Studies show that children growing up with pets are less prone to allergies and asthma. Children who are exposed to pets from a very early age tend to develop stronger immune systems than their peers. Being exposed to the bacteria around the pets, help in building a stronger immune response in children; thus, letting them grow up into strong and healthy people.
3) Pets are Source of Comfort
We all know how cuddling a furry little dog after a hard day of work, just melts away our stress. Kids also feel the same around pets, if not more A pet is always a source of comfort and happiness for a child, ever-present as a loyal friend. It helps children develop their personalities when they grow up around an unquestioning, non-judgemental friend i.e a pet.
4) Self-Esteem
When kids are made to feel responsible for their pets and they are successful in raising them, it always helps increase their self-esteem. They tend to carry an air of confidence around them and that helps them in their overall personality development. Setting goals and more importantly, being able to achieve them in terms of taking care of their pets, help in developing the confidence of a child.
5) Exercise
Pets need exercise and physical activities to stay fit. And when kids tend to take part in these physical endeavors, whether it is to take them for a walk or to run around with them in the back yard; it makes them physically fit as well! And we all know that a little exercise and play can help keep your kids mentally healthy as well, helping them do better in other areas of their lives, such as school.
6) Pets Build Family Bonds
A pet generally tends to bring the entire family closer, deepening the bond between the parents and their child. Just as a child learns to grow up as a pet, parents tend to develop their parenting skills as well. All in all, a pet tends to bring a family together and form unbreakable bonds.
7) Discipline
When growing up with a pet, a child automatically learns a lot about discipline while training them and teaching them to listen. Some might even say that cats automatically discipline their owners. Dogs are also proven to have a positive impact in terms of discipline when they undergo their own training process.
8) Commitment
Pets need constant care and that takes a lot of commitment on the part of the owner or your kids. Pets being living objects cannot be shelved or stored away by your kids when they are bored, as they would often do with their toys. Pets need to be groomed, fed, cleaned and loved constantly, which teaches the kids a lesson to commit and not to shy away from their pet.
9) Improve Reading Skills
Now as bizarre as this one sounds, pets do have an impact on the reading skills of a child. In fact, pets have a giant impact on cognitive and creative skills of a kid. Children generally like to read aloud, act out, or be creative and when they do so with their pets, they do it without any inhibition, without the fear of being judged. This helps them learn and improve tremendously.
10) Learning to Deal with Consequences
Teaching someone the consequences of their actions is hard unless the results are right in front of them. Hence, kids can learn a great deal about the consequences of their actions and how to deal with them while taking care of their pets, since the results are instant and easy for them to grasp. If the pets are not cared for and cleaned properly, it can smell bad or even make them sick and the child will automatically know where they went wrong and learn how to fix it.
Conclusion
It is easy to assume that pets are a great deal of responsibility that only adds to our worries of bringing up our child. People often feel that it is hard work and expensive to care for and support pets. And while some of it is true, the amount of happiness a pet brings in our and kids lives is incomparable! And moreover, the joy to offer a pet with a caring and loving home is extreme. Now, the thought of losing a pet can be a dire one, but that too has a lesson in it, It teaches kids to deal with the loss but at the same time it teaches them to cherish the memories they build with their pets.
A pet can help bring siblings together, or they can help a single child learn the meaning of sharing. Having a pet can make a lot of difference in your world, making everyone in your family happier and bringing them closer. And let’s agree, pets are an unlimited source of entertainments; apart from being adorable! So be it a tiny goldfish, a cute hamster, a fluffy cat or a furry dog; make sure to gift your child a pet and ensure their happiness along with yours! And if you don’t have time to feed your cat, teach your kids to do so! Hopefully now you have some major reasons why it is important to have animals around your kid.